


Chemistry

by serendipitee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitee/pseuds/serendipitee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventh-year and Gryffindor Quidditch all-star Louis Tomlinson is going to fail potions, fall off his broom, and make his best friend cry.  Might as well fall in love while he's at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Double

Potions.

Louis slumped over in his seat at the Gryffindor table, moaning over his class schedule.  He hated potions, and he had it double—in the morning, no less—with Professor Cardle.  The instructor, he could stand.  The class, not so much.  He was absolute bollocks at potions, but he needed it for his NEWTs if he planned on being an Auror like his mum.

An elbow prodded him in the side. “Sucks, mate,” Niall chimed from somewhere to his left. “Good luck I’m not taking it this year, though.”  

Louis emerged out of the cocoon of his arms to send a withering glare in his best friend’s direction.  Niall only shrugged at him. “Well, it’s true!  Let’s not forget last year’s cauldron-melting debaucle.”  And wasn’t that true—Niall had pretty much flooded the dungeons last year with a sleeping draught gone wrong.  It was pretty hilarious, watching all the Slytherins in their period shriek as the green goop bubbled underneath their stools; at least, until their own seats started to deteriorate beneath them.

Louis pouted, resting his chin on his hand. “I can’t believe you’re ditching me.  Wanker.” Niall started to protest, but quieted quickly as Harry Styles approached the two Gryffindors.  

The younger boy shot a huge grin to the both of them, smiling eyes matching just about perfectly with the green in his tie.  Harry was one of the rare Slytherins that the Gryffindors as a whole could stand, especially Niall and Louis, who had formed a quick friendship with him when he was a first year. “How’s it looking, lads?”

Niall said “great!” at the same time as Louis said “shitty,” and Harry stifled a chuckle. “Let’s see it then,” he urged, and Louis practically flung the parchment with his schedule on it to him while Harry handed his to Niall.

Harry winced down at the double potions first on the list. “That’s awful, Lou.  Sorry.”  He saved a small smile for Niall, though, who hadn't glanced at Harry's schedule at all, too preoccupied with staring at his face. “Me and Niall are going to be stuck with Grimshaw and all his constellations Friday nights, if that makes you feel any better.”

Louis was ready to say  _no, that doesn’t make me feel any better, Haz_ , but it probably wouldn’t have had the impact he wanted, judging from the way Harry was still gazing at Niall, who grinned at him. “Really?”  Niall’s Irish lilt had a hint of hope in it, and a hint of something else that Louis really didn’t need to think about.

“Yeah.”  Harry smiled at Niall like they were on some romantic date and not in the middle of the dining hall, and it almost made Louis want to throw up. “See you then?”

But he couldn’t really hate his best friends for being unintentionally lovey-dovey idiots, could he?  Niall nodded and said a soft “sure” and pretended not to watch as Harry walked away.

The second Harry was out of the dining hall, however, Louis rammed Niall in the side with his elbow. “Ow!”

Louis flapped his schedule in front of Niall’s face. “We have more of a problem here than your blue-balling for Harry, okay!”

Niall sent him an icy glare. “Oh, fuck off Tommo!  I don’t have a crush on Harry anyway.”

Louis threw his head back into his arms with a small scream.  His oblivious best friend was no help at all.

-

Louis dragged his feet all the way to potions after breakfast.  Zayn had managed to cover up his laugh with a cough when Louis passed the Ravenclaw table, grinning sheepishly back when Louis narrowed his eyes at him.

Zayn caught up with Louis as he left the Great Hall, shifting his books in his arms. “Double potions, huh? It’s gonna suck.”

“You have it too?” Louis asked hopefully, a flicker of excitement lighting.  He wouldn’t be alone after all.

“Nah.  Harry told me.”  And Louis’s shoulders dropped so far down they almost hit the floor. “But my mate Liam’s gonna be there too.  You could always partner up with him.”

“Liam?”  The name sounded familiar, but he wasn’t quite sure.

“Payne,” Zayn finished, and oh yeah, he knew Liam Payne.

Everyone knew Liam Payne, but not through reputation like people knew Harry or by raucous personality like people knew Louis.  He was a mild, quiet kid.  He was also the best chaser that Hufflepuff had ever seen, if not the best the school had ever had.  Louis had played opposite him on the Gryffindor Quidditch team a few times since he got on the team during third year, and the boy was a force to be reckoned with.  Louis was lucky if he could even see the Quaffle before Liam got it in for a goal.

“He’s ace at potions,” Zayn added as the bell started chiming, and he started jogging in the other direction, towards the towers. “Good luck, mate!”

Louis waved weakly back and descended towards the one thing he dreaded more than anything else, trying to keep a hopeful outlook.  The dark of the dungeons didn’t help.

By the time Louis got down there, class had already been on for a good five minutes, and everyone was scrounging around for supplies.  Professor Cardle gave him a disapproving look, but didn’t threaten any points deductions, which is a massive relief.

Louis searcheed around for an okay copy of the seventh-year potions book before making a beeline for Liam, who was posted at one of the tables near the front of the room.  He waved at the Hufflepuff, who gave a small but easy grin back. “Liam! Got a partner?”

Liam shrugged. “Not yet.”

Louis put his book on the table next to Liam’s cauldron and smirked at him. “Now you do.” 


	2. Firewhiskey

Damn, Louis got lucky.

He not only managed to survive double potions on a Monday morning, but he also managed to not cause a meltdown of the entirety of the school, which was obviously a good thing.  And most of that was thanks to Liam.

Louis had never really spoken to Liam off of the Quidditch field before, but not for lack of trying or anything.  They were in separate houses; it wasn’t odd not to overlap with other seventh-years, considering the class size was kind of huge ever since enrollment opened again after Voldemort was defeated.  Plus, as Louis found out during their period, Liam wasn’t particularly verbose.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t talk at all. He just seemed partial to nodding or grinning instead of opening his mouth overly much.  Which, of course, made Louis blather on and on enough for two people all on his own, embarrassingly enough.  But instead of scaring Liam away, it seemed to make the other boy smile harder, laughing at the right places in every story Louis told as he flicked his wrist over the cauldron and dumped crushed beetles into the brewing draught.

And it wasn’t like Louis had never had people giggling at his stories or helping him with his work, but something about Liam doing it made Louis a little weak at the knees.  He did love a good pair of brown eyes, true, and Liam had some of the prettiest ones he’d ever seen.  They scrunched up cutely at the corners whenever he laughed.  And his hair was all sorts of wonderful, standing up at the front and in some places at the back, like he’d just rolled out of bed.  Louis kind of wanted to put his fingers in it.

They finished the bowtruckle bite cure in time for lunch, and Professor Cardle gave the pair a pleased nod as he observed their cauldron. “Nice work, boys.  Good to see you both in here this year; the Aurors are going to be lucky to have you.”

Louis smiled respectfully back, struck by his teacher’s sudden compliment. “Thank you, sir.”  Liam blushed happily and murmured a quiet thank you as well, and the professor shooed them off to lunch as he collected some of the potion to get to Professor Lloyd, the Care of Magical Creatures instructor.

Louis collected his stuff slowly, waiting up for Liam as he put the extras from the potion away.  He shoved his pencil behind his ear and gave the other boy a wide smile.  

Liam pulled a little grin in return, but he didn’t look at Louis very long, gaze dropping towards the ground. “You don’t have to wait for me.”

Louis shrugged as if he really didn’t care much, even if that was blatantly untrue, and pushed himself away from the table he was leaning on and towards the door as Liam finished with cleaning up. “I want to.  You just became my savior, in case you didn’t know.”

Liam pulled his bag over his shoulder and made his way towards the door in step with Louis, furrowing his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Pretty much.  I’m awful at potions.”

Liam smiled again, and it was soft and complimentary.  And Louis wanted to see it again. “You did really well, though.”

For some reason, Liam’s approval made Louis glow with pride, even further than Cardle’s compliment had. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Liam insisted with a smile. “Well, besides when you almost set me on fire….”

Louis snorted. “Well, what’s a good friendship without a little combustion?”

Liam laughed at that, a hopeful curve to his grin. “Friendship?”  The smile dropped off of his face. “Who said I wanted to be friends with you?”

That caught Louis off guard, and he stopped in the middle of the hallway, gobsmacked.  Liam stared straight-faced at him for a full second before bursting into laughter again.  He nudged Louis gently in the side with an elbow, something so reminiscent of Niall that Louis had to stop himself from bucking back with his own bony limb. “Friends, right?”

Louis shook his head, completely unconvincing in his disapproval.  Probably because he really had none. “Friends.”

-

It had been about five days since Louis had fully developed his crush on Liam, completely in secret.  So naturally, all three of his best friends already knew about it.

Niall was the first to say anything about it, as he’s the first to say anything about anything—he and Louis had been friends since before Hogwarts. Louis’s single mum had been in need of a fellow witch to lean on, considering she was raising five magical children, and happened to find a blonde, Irish one in the vegetable aisle of the neighborhood Tesco.  Niall pushed his way into Louis’s life for better or worse.  

This was the ‘worse’ part. “Word on the street is that you’ve got the hots for Liam.”  Niall wiggled his eyebrows lewdly from his seat across the table from Louis in the Gryffindor common room.  

Louis flicked him in the temple. “Keep your voice down, idiot!”

“So it’s true then?” Niall asked, blue eyes wide, fingers rubbing absently at the red spot on the side of his head.

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Niall prodded, eyes narrowing and stance slumping into a newsperson’s intensity in a way he surely thought was hilarious.  Louis wasn’t nearly that amused.

“Yes. Shut up, Niall.”

The Irish boy pressed a hand to his chest. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks!” he sing-songed, loudly.  Louis shushed him again, harshly, making sure to give him a glare that could start a fire.  But instead of pursuing it further, Niall just laughed at his best friend.

Zayn approached him at lunch the next day, looking almost miffed.  And really, any change from the disaffected look he usually held was a sign of something—in this case, it didn’t look good.  He sat down across from Louis and Niall at the Gryffindor table, ignoring the weird looks he got from the other students. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Louis had no idea what he was talking about for a moment, but Niall snorted into his mashed potatoes.  That gave it away.  He punched Niall in the arm, and the other boy’s shriek was satisfying enough. “I haven’t told anyone.”

“Then how do Harry and that joker know already?” Zayn inquired, pointing at Niall for the ‘joker’ part.

“I know all,” Niall insisted in an affected tone, the effect lost by the fact that he had mashed potatoes on his tie.

Louis frowned at Niall. “You didn’t tell Harry, did you?”

Niall shook his head, and he wouldn’t really have lied about that. “Nah.  He can just tell with these things, I guess.”

The Doncaster boy traded an incredulous look with Zayn before giving Niall a deadpan expression. “He can just  _tell_  with  _these things_?”

Niall clearly missed the intent, forking more potatoes into his mouth. “Seems like it.”

Harry cornered Louis as the latter made his way to the Slytherin-Ravenclaw game on Saturday, already in full uniform, broom in hand. “You like Liam Payne?”

Louis groaned.  He’d almost forgotten that this was apparently the news of the century in his circle of friends. “How did you find out?”

Harry tossed his hair, trying for pretentious.  It didn’t really work, but it did make a few of the Ravenclaw girls making their way to the field swoon a little. “I just know these things.”

Louis fumed.  That sounded a little too familiar for his liking. “Niall told you, didn’t he?”

Harry wasn’t as good a liar as Niall.  His eyes flickered around slightly, afraid to meet with Louis’s. “N-no, of course not.”

“I am going to slay that Irish bastard,” Louis promised, but Harry’s eyes narrowed on something just over his shoulder, expression turning weird. “What?”

A warm hand pressed onto his shoulder. “Hey, Lou.”  And it was probably pretty creepy that Louis had already committed the sound of Liam’s voice to memory, but he was glad he had, sweetly gravelly tone and all.

Liam came into his vision, grinning apologetically at Harry, and Louis can tell why, considering he was completely decked out in bronze and blue. “Sorry, Harry.  I’m sticking with Zayn this game.”  

Harry didn’t look bothered. “It’s fine, Liam.  Just don’t be upset when we beat  Zayn now and  _you_  next week.”

Louis scoffed as Liam shrugged mildly. “Good luck with that one, mate.”

The sound of a whistle sliced through the chilly air, and Harry uttered a low curse before jogging towards the team rooms. “Party later, whoever wins?”

“Obviously,” Louis called back, and Harry gave the pair a ridiculous wave and two thumbs up before sprinting off with his broom.

Louis turned to Liam, who smiled back at him, but that didn’t stop the feeling in his gut that he was missing out. “You know Harry?”

“Of course.  That kid is mental on the field.  He’s almost as good a Seeker as Niall.”

Louis’s jaw dropped. “You know Niall too?  How did everyone know you but me?”

Liam’s cheeks flushed an attractive pink as he looked down at the ground, toeing a trod-up chunk of grass with the tip of his Converse. “I, uh.  I was afraid to talk to you.”

That didn’t make any sense at all to Louis. “Why?”

“Do I really have to say it?” Liam asked, gaze actually meeting with Louis’s. The chocolatey brown is sincere, and a little nervous looking. “You’re so…popular.”

Yeah, maybe Louis made friends really easily.  He did flutter around and talk to as many people as he possibly could, and he prided himself on being able to transition from one group to another.  But popular?  That implied some sort of condescention, and Louis really had no place to be condescending, ever.  He was one of the weirdest people he knew, and seeing as he was friends with Niall, that was saying something. “Well, I’m glad I talked to you.”

Liam tried to hide his smile.  It didn’t work, thank goodness. “Yeah?”

“Definitely.”

They talked strategy all the way to the field, wondering whether or not Harry would even be able to see the Snitch in the less-than-perfect grayish weather out. Chances weren’t exactly in his favor, but Zayn seemed psyched up to deny any attempts on goal by the Slytherins.  Zayn was an excellent Keeper, so the Slytherin offense was going to have an even harder time than they always did.

The Ravenclaws took the Slytherins down so easily that Harry had to curse out every single member of his team before he felt okay enough to come to the Ravenclaw common room to celebrate for Zayn.

Somehow, one of the seventh-year Ravenclaws, Jay McGuiness, had gotten his hands on a load of butterbeer to celebrate their victory, the first of the season.  So drunkenness was somewhat expected and easily obtained on Louis’s part.

He fell into Liam’s lap sometime late, overaffectionate as he was when drunk, giving a lazy finger to the person in the portrait that stared judgingly down at him.  She gasped in horror and made a little ‘humph’ sound as she walked out of the portrait’s gilded frame.  Liam chuckled at him, wrapping an arm around his waist to ensure Louis didn’t fall on his face, and leaned in close to his ear to make himself heard over the din. “You seem like you’re having a good time.”

Louis patted the side of Liam’s face. “That I am, that I am.  What about you? I haven’t seen you drinking anything.”

“Can’t.  Bad kidney,” Liam explained. “Something magic can’t fix, I guess.”

Louis had no idea. “That suuuucks,” he drew the word out, pressing his forehead to the side of Liam’s head. “You poor thing.”

Liam laughed, and Louis could feel it against his side. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun, Lou.”

“I guess you’re right,” Louis decided, and without really thinking about it, he nuzzled his nose into Liam’s hair, rubbing the tip of it against Liam’s ear in an eskimo kiss. “I like that about you, Liam.  I like everything about you.  And your hair smells good.”

And when Liam turned his head, something in Louis’s drunken brain told him it was okay to just lean in and kiss him right on his perfectly kissable, inredibly pink lips.  So he did.

He broke away after half a second, though, realization flooding to him, and he hopped quickly off of Liam’s lap, leaving the Ravenclaw common room as quickly as he could, nausea and panic overcoming him.

He stopped just outside, pressing his back against the hard, cold stone wall and knocking the back of his head against it, as if that would give him more common sense.

Shit.  What did he just do?


	3. Mondays

Louis was pretty sure that he had never done anything stupider than kiss his potions partner. Niall would disagree—he obviously knew Louis better than Louis did—citing the attempted explosion of the Slytherin broom shed (Louis had burned his eyebrows off), the weeklong trip to Brighton (he didn’t want to talk about it), and dating Gemma Styles (Harry had a deadly capability for the Incendio charm in him, as it turned out). But as far as Louis was concerned, this was the worst of the worst.

His drunken brain had clearly not taken the fact that he would have to see the other boy almost every single day for the rest of the year into consideration. Which was definitely a problem, taking into account the fact that Liam now hated him.

As Niall would point out—obnoxiously, again—there was no way for Louis to know that the other boy hated him unless he talked to him. And there was no way Louis was trying to do that, because his chances were slim to none in the forgiveness department. Liam definitely hated him, and even if he didn’t, Louis was so embarrassed by what he had done that he was sure one conversation with the other boy would probably cause him to die out of mortification.

He was dreading Monday more than he had ever dreaded a day in his life.  He actually tossed and turned in bed so much on Sunday night worrying about it that he missed breakfast (and skidded into potions a half-hour late) on Monday morning.  Cardle decked him five points for it.  Things were definitely not looking up.

Needless to say, things were also a little awkward, between him and his potions partner at least.  Liam only talked to him when necessary, and Louis really couldn’t find anything clever to say to diffuse the tension.  Liam did seem very non-confrontational, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to rip Louis’s head off for kissing him in front of practically their entire seventh-year class.

Louis almost wanted Liam just to scream at him.  That would both get rid of the awkwardness and let Louis know where he stood with the other boy, even if it was in a shitty standpoint.  That way, Louis wouldn’t just have to stand there practically dying of embarrassment and worry and a pinch of heartache as Liam quietly asked him to grind up flies’ wings for their concoction.

He watched in uncomfortable silence as Liam dumped the wing dust into their cauldron.  A tiny purple flame caught in the middle of the batch, and Liam took on a horrified expression. “Louis, how many wings was that?”

“Thirteen,” he answered absently but surely, watching the fire grow across the top of the bubbling potion. “It was supposed to thirteen, right?”

“I told you twelve,” Liam insisted, locking Louis’s arm in a vice grip, eyes not leaving the cauldron.  Louis couldn’t look away either, watching the boiling increase in its intensity, purple-green potion threatening to roll over the lip of the pot. “It should have been twelve!  Duck!”

He pulled Louis down underneath the table in time to hear a muffled booming sound and the shrieks of some of their classmates.  Louis bit his lip as he watched splatters of the potion smack down to the floor and begin to crawl away, sticking slightly to the bottoms of people’s shoes and burning holes in them.  

Fuck.  That was his fault.

“Louis…” Liam said, his voice rumbling lowly, tempestuously.  Maybe he had been wrong about Liam being a pacifist. “You—ouch!”

Louis eyes flicked down to Liam’s feet, one of which he was kicking sporadically away from him.  His right shoe was smoking, some of the green slime having caught on to the uniform leather and singeing steadily into it.

“Shit!” Liam cried, and that was almost more disturbing than watching his toes getting burnt off. He jumped out from below the table, dodging the splatters on the floor, and sprinted out of the room after his and Louis’s classmates. “Ow, ow, ow!”

Guilt crushed in on Louis from every side, squeezing tightly around his windpipe.  Liam leaned into the wall and skidded down to sit on the cold ground.  He pushed off his shoe to reveal a huge hole in his gray sock and his toes an ugly, angry red, and the guilt started to choke Louis with a fierce grip. “Liam….”  He wondered how many ways he could say  _I am so, so sorry_  until the other boy shut him up.

But Liam couldn’t even look at him, eyes screwed shut partly in pain and surely partway in fury. “Don’t,” he bit out, trying to flex his toes.  He groaned. “Please, don’t.”

“Class dismissed; everyone just go to lunch.”  Professor Cardle pushed Louis out of the way, looking more exasperated and exhausted than anything, heaving out a sigh as he inspected the Hufflepuff’s foot. “Louis, you too.”

Louis cast Liam a hopeless glance.  The boy was resolutely not looking at him, staring down at the stone floor with brows furrowed. “But….”  He could help Liam to the infirmary if he needed.  He would do pretty much anything to make this less awful and to make Liam feel better.  Louis wished, more than anything, that he could do  _something_  to make up for the speedy mess he’d so easily made in Liam’s life.

Cardle rubbed his eyes, frown etching into his face. “I think you’ve done enough.”

-

Apparently, the fates had it in for him today.

He realized it sometime on the way to the Quidditch field for the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game, having not eaten anything all day and having sent Liam to the infirmary.

If that wasn’t enough, he’d ended up making Niall cry.  On purpose.

He just wasn’t in the mood for his best friend mucking about, not on this unholiest of days.  And when Niall had made some idiotic, sarcastic crack about Liam, Louis simply snapped. “Would you just shut it, you fucking idiot!”

Niall hadn’t expected that, a shell-shocked expression crossing his face.  It was gone in half a second, though, replaced by a hard look. “Jesus Christ, Tommo, calm the fuck down.  Who pissed in your porridge?”

“Just shut up, okay?  No one wants to hear about you and your hopeless pining over Harry anymore.”

He could tell that one hit harder, Niall’s blue eyes flashing in hurt. “At least I didn’t blow his fucking foot off just because I got rejected.”

And Louis knew, right as he was saying it, that this was going to be a worse barb than the rest.  It boiled poisonously in his stomach before he spit it out. “But you’ve never been rejected by him, have you? He’s never even considered you, poor bastard, and he never will. You’re nothing to him.”

Niall’s icy glare didn’t have its usual effect, bright eyes preoccupied by the swelling of tears.  He stood up stiffly from the Gryffindor table, pulling his books with him, and turned away without so much as a word in return.  Louis tried to ignore the burning in the corners of his own eyes to eat—they had a game later—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.  

Nausea rolling and roiling in his stomach, he made his way down to the Quidditch pitch by himself, changing slowly into his uniform and denying his teammates’ eye contact.  A nudge and an attempted grin by Nathan Sykes, his fellow forward Chaser, fell short at the frown pasted on Louis’s lips.

Zayn intercepted outside of the changing room. “I really hope you’re pleased with yourself.”  He gave the other seventh-year a halfhearted glare over the animated comic book his nose was stuck in.  Disapproval oozed from every pore.

Louis simply scowled back. “Not really, no, but thanks for bringing it up,” he snapped.  His arms crossed protectively in front of his chest, but that didn’t do much to stop the shame he started feeling in his limbs, a dull, contagious ache. “How’s Liam?”

“Liam’s fine; I was talking about Niall.”  Zayn sighed, and Louis just added ‘disappointing people’ to his list of bad things for the day. He could check that off as complete. “He came crying to  _me_ , you wanker.  You know I don’t know how to deal with that stuff!” 

“I’m sorry, Zayn.  I really—I didn’t mean to.”  And the other boy gave him a look that said nothing but  _don’t apologize to_ me _, you idiot._  ”What did you do?”

Zayn looked uncomfortable just talking about it. “Just kind of—patted him on the back.  But he ran off to talk to Harry and I haven’t seen him sin—whoa.”

Louis glanced over his shoulder to understand what had caught Zayn’s attention, and he had to do a double-take to realize what was going on. “What— _wow_.”

Harry was clutching another boy so close to him that there was no space in between him and the Quidditch player’s rouge uniform, one hand pressed into the other boy’s lower back and the other wrapped around the back of his neck.  Pale fingers were locked tight in Harry’s curls, and an unmistakable grin pressed against Harry’s lips.  

Niall.

Louis was so stunned that he forgot completely the fight he’d just had with his friend. “Holy shit!”

The pair broke from their kissing, and Niall tried to narrow a glare at Louis as he wrapped an arm around Harry’s neck.  It failed completely, but now it was thanks to the breathless smile sticking to his cheeks.  Harry gave Louis a warm grin too, but too soon got distracted by Niall and started in smiling softly at the side of his face.  

“I guess you were wrong, huh?” Niall quipped, good-natured, at Louis.

The other Gryffindor just shook his head. “Never.  I just wanted to make you go away; sorry.”

“Whatever, boss,” Niall conceeded, rolling his eyes with a smile, and just like that, their arguement was done.  Harry nosed gently behind Niall’s ear and said something too quiet for Zayn and Louis to hear.  It seemed to distract Niall, though, his cheeks flaring red. “I—I’ll see you up there, Lou.”

Louis and Zayn shared a look.  They were going to be one of  _those_  couples, weren’t they?  Still, a smile plastered itself onto Louis’s face as the pair left Niall and Harry to do—whatever it was they were planning on doing.  He’d been watching his best friend moon over Harry for years and he’d slowly realized how Harry was doing the exact same.  

Thank fuck at least  _someone_  had it together.  Seeing Liam from across the field, stretching his calves in his black and yellow uniform, reminded him rather forcefully that he certainly did not.


	4. Bludgeoned

If there was one thing in the entire universe that Louis was really good at, it was flying.  If he was absolute shit at being a good friend, or an attentive student, or not kissing his potions partner, then at least he could take solace in the fact that he could ride a broomstick better than almost anyone else.

He could hardly believe his luck when Max George and Tom Parker, the Gryffindor co-captains, had pulled him onto the starting lineup during third year, putting him up as forward Chaser.  Max and Tom were an absolute hurricane on the field—the best Beaters of their year—and the fact that they would notice a third-year at all was pretty astonishing.  He didn’t fly as quick as Niall or block as roughly as Nathan.  He wasn’t assuming (not back then at least), quietly trying out with the other younger Gryffindors.  

Louis hadn’t expected it to be so  _easy_ , frankly.  It was simple for him to creep between the more experienced players on the other side of the scrimmage.  He could twist himself around in the air quicker than most of the seventh-years, practically throwing himself under the Quaffle and zooming down towards the opposite side of the field with it.  And as he got older, he took hits easier and blocked cleverer.  He could do trick shots with his broom if he needed, and he’d learned how to fly without his hands years ago.  If Louis could do anything, it was flying.

Which is why, when he saw a rogue Bludger hurtling dangerously fast towards Liam, he knew what to do.  

Fuck, this was going to hurt.

The Bludgers had been acting weird all week—probably a curse from the Slytherins—and now, one was barreling towards an unsuspecting Liam like a rocket, aiming directly for his head.

Louis leaned forward on his broomstick, and he shot forward, wind whipping back at him in protest.  The boy raced the ball towards Liam, and he could hear gasps from the crowd, the spectators probably thinking he was planning on body-checking Liam to the ground.  Well, Louis  _was_  known for that.

Once Louis got close enough to see his face, Liam had the same fear in his eyes.  He hovered uncertainly on his broom, waiting for Louis to get closer to decide what to do.  Which, come on.  No amount of anything would really make Louis try to knock one of his good friends—much less his highly painful, extremely badly handled crush—off their broomstick.

Louis shouted at him, watching the Bludger come careening his way out of the corner of his eye. “MOVE!”

Liam moved. 

Just a little too late.

The ball smashed into Louis’s side, dull cracks punching through the air, and nearly sent Louis sailing off of his Firebolt. His heartbeat smashed in his skull as he cried out from the impact.  He slumped on the broom, wheezing, grip weak; a couple of broken ribs wasn’t anything to shake a stick at.  Louis put his cheek to the warm wood of the broom’s handle, not expecting the ball to come back for another round.

He should have.  The second hit (from the opposite side— _wow_ , those Slytherins must have been pissed off) got him in the shoulder and knocked him off of the Firebolt completely, sending him plummeting toward the ground.  

Distantly, he could hear Liam screaming his name in terror.  The air tore past his ears loud enough to be deafening, and he didn’t realize that Liam was actually zooming toward him on his broom, grasping a wrist in his iron hold, until they were both tumbling to the ground.  Liam landed roughly, broomstick tossing itself away from him and Liam finding himself facedown in the grass, but thankfully the attempted rescue had slowed both of them down a bit.

Louis panted at the sun, the pain in his side and shoulder blossoming into something utterly unbearable.  Falling right on his back hadn’t helped much, either, now that he came to think of it.  He wished he hadn’t, spine tingling and crackling with the promise of more pain to come, his nerve endings erupting in agony.

Liam’s face appeared overhead, dirt streaked across his cheeks.  ”Louis, oh my god, are you okay?”

“No,” Louis giggled, hysteria working out of his injuries and into his head. “But you are.”  He reached up to pull at the strands of Liam’s hair, shafts of grass sticking out at odd angles.  His shoulder put up with it for a good fourteen seconds before protesting with so much force that spots danced in Louis’s vision. “Ouch.”

The last thing Louis remembered before passing out was the helpless, gutted look on Liam’s face.

-

The low rumble of voices ended up being what woke Louis, some hours later, in the infirmary.  He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know where he was—he’d been here often enough.  The stench of household cleaner and magically-enhanced bleach was achingly familiar.

“Liam, he’ll be fine.  Madame Perry already said so.” 

“I know.”

“Then come down and eat with us.”

“I—”  Liam’s voice faltered. “I’m okay.  Not really hungry.”

A concerned huff.  That must have been Zayn. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“Like I said.  I’m just not really hungry, mate.”

Defeated sigh.  Yeah, that was definitely Zayn. Louis had already heard that sound an awful lot from him. “Whatever, man.  See you in the morning, yeah?  You better be at breakfast.”

“I’ll be there,” Liam swore, and it sounded disingenuous even to a half-awake Louis. Zayn just snorted at the promise, muttering something about “fucking lovestruck fucks” that made no sense to Louis at all before the door to the infirmary slammed behind him.

Louis figured that was as good a cue as any to officially ‘wake up’.  He blinked his eyes open slowly, stretching out his arms and legs.  His shoulder protested, only weakly, still a tad bit sore from his hit, and his ribs had that pinching ache that only newly-repaired bones could make.  The bones in his back popped loudly, pleased to be freed from disuse, despite the muscle strain pulling with a low burn across the entirety of his back.

But his sore body only kept his attention for a few seconds. “Louis?”

Louis’s gaze caught on to Liam, and his heart squeezed painfully just at the sight of him.  The boy was still in his dirty Quidditch uniform, sleeves rolled up past his elbows.  He was leaning forward in the rickety chair next to Louis’s bed, his hands curling in the bleached sheets.  There was blood on his fingers, and Louis wondered absently if that was from him.

“Hey, Liam.”  As Louis sat up, he let a smile trickle hesitantly across his face.

Liam’s eyes, all molten-chocolatey as they were, focused on him in a glance so soft that it felt like a punch right in the gut.  That is, until the look changed, lightning-quick, to one of near-furious upset.  Then, he got an actual punch to the gut.

It wasn’t super hard, granted.  But it was hard enough for Louis to wonder what exactly the fuck he had done wrong now.

Liam was ready to answer that for him, clearly.  He loosed his hold in Louis’s bedsheets in exchange for a yank on the front of Louis’s jersey, pulling the other boy closer to him. “You’re an idiot, Tomlinson.”

“I know,” Louis agreed miserably.  He was finally going to get Louis back for the kiss, wasn’t he?  Louis hadn’t had Liam marked for the vindictive type, but he’d been wrong about a lot lately.

Liam sighed and shook his head and the rays from the setting sun came in through the other window right behind his left shoulder.  He looked like some god had just dropped him from above on accident, light casting around him in a heavenly glow.  

God, Louis wished he hadn’t screwed up so bad.  Especially with the whole kiss thing.  If he hadn’t have done that, Louis could have lived with the fact that his potions partner was basically a god and practically perfect and totally uncorrupted by Louis’s fuckups.  Even if that meant he would always be out of Louis’s reach.

“Why did you run away?”

That sent Louis’s train of thought to a skidding halt. “What?”

Liam let go of Louis’s jersey, his gaze flicking to the ground simultaneously. “From the party.  I mean, I thought….”  The descent into silence was accompanied by a half upset, half mortified look, and it had much the same tone as the voice in Louis head that liked to whisper  _I can’t believe I was so stupid._    

Louis’s brain screamed for clarification, but it seemed as if his heart already knew what was going on, picking up speed in his chest.  It sprinted in its place, beat erratic and breathless. And Louis didn’t even know what it might have meant, but he said what was on the tip of his tongue anyway. “You thought right.”

Liam’s eyelashes were incredibly long, and Louis watched in slight fascination as they blinked once, twice, slowly fanning as a helpless, lopsided grin worked onto Liam’s lips. “Yeah?” he breathed, leaning further into Louis’s space.

He felt hazy from Liam’s closeness, his scent of grass and sweat and boy, his lingering, hopeful gaze.  Somehow, putting a hand to Liam’s face sent all of it into sharp, too-bright clarity, the feeling of stubble sticking underneath his fingers and the curve of Liam’s still-smiling cheek captured beneath his palm.

Thank fuck for potions, Louis thought not-so-randomly, pressing his mouth against Liam’s and whispering back an answer that tasted maybe a little bit like magic. “Definitely.”


End file.
